Encountering Thin Places: One Priest's Hope in the Modern WorldConstant Wonder • Season 13, Episode 15
Apr 15, 2026
Reverend Dr. Andrew Teal grew up wandering the ruins of Fountains Abbey in the UK -- his first experience with a thin space. After he was ordained an Anglican priest in his twenties, he learned to find the sacred as easily in seminar rooms as on the side of the road. Teal believes in the power of inhabiting the world, be it through philosophy, poetry, or simply your presence.
Guest: Reverend Dr. Andrew Teal, an Anglican priest, chaplain, fellow, and lecturer in theology at Pembroke College, Oxford University.
Chapters:
(0:00) Introduction
(3:55) Fountains Abbey
(13:17) Grief and silence
(20:23) Rachel's thunderbolt
(24:57) Thin spaces
(32:35) Prodigal sons and sacred hymns
(43:34) Illumination